Medication nonadherence is widely recognized as a common and costly problem. Approximately 30% to 50% of U.S. adults are not adherent to long-term medications leading to an estimated $100 billion in preventable costs annually. The barriers to medication adherence are similar to other complex health behaviors, such as weight loss, which have multiple contributing factors. (JAMA HT: Michael Ramlet)

True. Others are also realizing alternative medicines coming from more natural supplements while others just don’t even bother and rather live with whatever their condition is. In essence, we have become an overly-medicated society and that is also contributing to a wide array of addictions and deaths.

It all depends on what the condition is and how important the drug is. I think for chronic and very intense conditions, most people take the responsibility to adhere to their medications. Non-adherence most likely becomes a problem when we’re dealing with less pressing conditions where the cost of side effects outweighs the benefits of the drug.

Medication nonadherence is widely recognized as a common and costly problem.

It would be interesting to conduct research on matched sets of nonadherent patients with those who took their medications for a variety of conditions and different drugs. Lifestyle would have to be taken into account. I suspect the results would be less than many people believe. It would be most interesting to see which drugs and which conditions provide the least benefit for the cost.

After my Cancer treatment I was put on a couple maintenance drugs I will have to take forever. After the first year I experimented to see if I still needed them so I stopped taking them. After about a week I ended up in the hospital with chest pain I have never had before. It was like my whole system locked up. I will never do that again. I suspect other people do the same.